31 October 2011

Shabbat Bereshis brought this thought to me. These unnatural humans perpetrating heinous acts on HaShem's children could be no other than bnei satan, fighting with all his strength to stop Jews from flourishing on their promised Land. If only the Israeli Government would take the proper stance and eliminate the evil .... Maybe a three prong preemptive maneuver (Gaza, Syria, Persia) would quiet the world.

Recently we hear others voicing the same:

Bnei Satan are Getting Bolder

Deputy Minister MK Ayoub Kara (Likud) warned Sunday that Israel can no longer practice restraint in the face of the terror attacks against its civilians. Every terror attack requires a counterstrike against the terror groups' leaders, he said, "who hide like cowards behind 'little shaheeds' who are promised 72 virgins."

""There is no religion that preaches murder, and these Jihad and Hamas terrorists are descendants of the Devil," he added. "Israel is the key to the free world in the Middle East, and strengthening it disrupts radical Islam's plan to take over the Arab states with its teachings and continue from there to the enlightened world. Recent events in our region prove that a chicken is worth more than a human being in Damascus nowadays, yet the hypocritical world does not even initiate a ceasefire, and instead looks at Israel's every action through a magnifying glass and denounces it disproportionately." "

And David Bedein had this to say:

David Bedein, reporting from the United States..."It's not like Martians are invading from outer space", Bedein says, "It's the Hamas regime." He smashes the false contention that Islamic Jihad alone is responsible for the attacks.

"This was the first attack since the Shalit deal, in which Israel released 477 terrorists in exchange for Gilad Shalit, was implemented last week. Two weeks ago, a Kassam rocket exploded in an open area in the Ashkelon Coast Regional Council. The rocket caused damage to buildings, but there were no injuries. Earlier on Wednesday evening, a military vehicle was that was on patrol south of Bethlehem hit a roadside bomb near Khirbet Eliya. The bomb exploded, causing damage to the vehicle. There were no physical injuries. The attacks were the latest in a series of terror attacks over the past several days, most of them in the Judea and Samaria area."

"It was a calculated act, performed with conviction and faith in Allah," Tamini said in an interview posted on the Hamas website. "Jihad warriors are always ready to die as martyrs, to be arrested - or to succeed. I managed to overcome the barrier of prison and was released. Why should I repent?"

Another Saudi Sheikh, a member of Saudi Arabia's royal family has offered a $900,000 reward for the capture of an Israeli soldier... Prince Khaled bin Talal, the brother of business tycoon and Fox News co-owner Walid bin Talal, told the Saudi-based broadcaster Al Daleel that the captive would then be released in exchange for Arabs held in Israeli prisons.

30 October 2011

While reading this, I couldn't help but think of the current hodgepodge erupting over the Middle East and likewise creeping over the rest of the world, so I am posting this in it's entirety, having originally appearing on ArutzSheva.

Between the Days of Noah, His Generations, and Today's Similarities: The Flood tells us what happens to civilization when individuals rule and there is no collective. Babel tells us what happens when the collective rules and individuals are sacrificed to it.

Individual and Collective Responsibility

From Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks

I once had the opportunity to ask the Catholic writer Paul Johnson what had struck him most about Judaism during the long period he spent researching it for his masterly A History of the Jews?

He replied in roughly these words: “There have been, in the course of history, societies that emphasised the individual – like the secular West today. And there have been others that placed weight on the collective – communist Russia or China, for example.”

Judaism, he continued, was the most successful example he knew of that managed the delicate balance between both – giving equal weight to individual and collective responsibility. Judaism was a religion of strong individuals and strong communities. This, he said, was very rare and difficult, and constituted one of our greatest achievements

It was a wise and subtle observation. Without knowing it, he had in effect paraphrased Hillel’s aphorism: “If I am not for myself, who will be (individual responsibility)? But if I am only for myself, what am I (collective responsibility)?”

This insight allows us to see the argument of Parshat Noach in a way that might not have been obvious otherwise.

The parsha begins and ends with two great events, the Flood on the one hand, Babel and its tower on the other. On the face of it they have nothing in common. The failings of the generation of the Flood are explicit. “The world was corrupt before God, and the land was filled with violence. God saw the world, and it was corrupted. All flesh had perverted its way on the earth” (Gen. 6: 11-12). Wickedness, violence, corruption, perversion: this is the language of systemic moral failure.

Babel by contrast seems almost idyllic. “The entire earth had one language and a common speech” (11: 1). The builders are bent on construction, not destruction. It is far from clear what their sin was. Yet from the Torah’s point of view Babel represents another serious wrong turn, because immediately thereafter God summons Abraham to begin an entirely new chapter in the religious story of humankind.

There is no Flood – God had, in any case, sworn that He would never again punish humanity in such a way (“Never again will I curse the soil because of man, for the inclination of man's heart is evil from his youth. I will never again strike down all life as I have just done”, 8: 21). But it is clear that after Babel God comes to the conclusion that there must be another and different way for humans to live.

Both the Flood and the Tower of Babel are rooted in actual historical events, even if the narrative is not couched in the language of descriptive history. Mesopotamia had many flood tales, all of which testify to the memory of disastrous inundations, especially on the flat lands of the Tigris-Euphrates valley (See Commentary of R. David Zvi Hoffman to Genesis 6 [Hebrew, 140] who suggests that the Flood may have been limited to centres of human habitation, rather than covering the whole earth). Excavations at Shurrupak, Kish, Uruk and Ur – Abraham’s birthplace – reveal evidence of clay flood deposits.

Likewise the Tower of Babel was a historical reality. Herodotus tells of the sacred enclosure of Babylon, at the centre of which was a ziqqurat or tower of seven stories, 300 feet high. The remains of more than thirty such towers have been discovered, mainly in lower Mesopotamia, and many references have been found in the literature of the time that speak of such towers “reaching heaven.”

However, the stories of the Flood and Babel are not merely historical, because the Torah is not history but “teaching, instruction.” They are there because they represent a profound moral-social-political-spiritual truth about the human situation as the Torah sees it. They represent, respectively, precisely the failures intimated by Paul Johnson.

The Flood tells us what happens to civilization when individuals rule and there is no collective. Babel tells us what happens when the collective rules and individuals are sacrificed to it.

It was Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), the thinker who laid the foundations of modern politics in his classic Leviathan (1651), who – without referring to the Flood – gave it its best interpretation.

Before there were political institutions, said Hobbes, human beings were in a “state of nature.” They were individuals, packs, bands. Lacking a stable ruler, an effective government and enforceable laws, people would be in a state of permanent and violent chaos – “a war of every man against every man” – as they competed for scarce resources. There would be “continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Such situations exist today in a whole series of failed or failing states.

That is precisely the Torah’s description of life before the Flood. When there is no rule of law to constrain individuals, the world is filled with violence.

Babel is the opposite, and we now have important historical evidence as to exactly what was meant by the sentence, “The entire land had one language and a common speech.” This may not refer to primal humanity before the division of languages. In fact in the previous chapter the Torah has already stated, “From these the maritime peoples spread out into their lands in their clans within their nations, each with its own language” (Gen. 10: 50).

The Talmud Yerushalmi, Megillah 1: 11, 71b, records a dispute between R. Eliezer and R. Johanan, one of whom holds that the division of humanity into seventy languages occurred before the Flood.

The reference seems to be to the imperial practice of the neo-Assyrians, of imposing their own language on the peoples they conquered. One inscription of the time records that Ashurbanipal II “made the totality of all peoples speak one speech.” A cylinder inscription of Sargon II says, “Populations of the four quarters of the world with strange tongues and incompatible speech . . . whom I had taken as booty at the command of Ashur my lord by the might of my sceptre, I caused to accept a single voice.”

The neo-Assyrians asserted their supremacy by insisting that their language was the only one to be used by the nations and populations they had defeated. On this reading, Babel is a critique of imperialism.

There is even a hint of this in the parallelism of language between the builders of Babel and the Egyptian Pharaoh who enslaved the Israelites. In Babel they said, “Come, [hava] let us build ourselves a city and a tower . . . lest [pen] we be scattered over the face of the earth” (Gen. 11: 4). In Egypt Pharaoh said, “Come, [hava] let us deal wisely with them, lest [pen] they increase so much . . .” (Ex. 1: 10). The repeated “Come, let us ... lest” is too pronounced to be accidental. Babel, like Egypt, represents an empire that subjugates entire populations, riding roughshod over their identities and freedoms.

If this is so, we will have to re-read the entire Babel story in a way that makes it much more convincing. The sequence is this: Genesis 10 describes the division of humanity into seventy nations and seventy languages. Genesis 11 tells of how one imperial power conquered smaller nations and imposed their language and culture on them, thus directly contravening God’s wish that humans should respect the integrity of each nation and each individual.

When at the end of the Babel story God “confuses the language” of the builders, He is not creating a new state of affairs but restoring the old.

Interpreted thus, the story of Babel is a critique of the power of the collective when it crushes individuality – the individuality of the seventy cultures described in Genesis 10.

(A personal note: I had the privilege of addressing 2,000 leaders from all the world’s faiths at the Millennium Peace Summit in the United Nations in August 2000. It turned out that there were exactly 70 traditions – each with their subdivisions and sects – represented. So it seems there still are seventy basic cultures).

When the rule of law is used to suppress individuals and their distinctive languages and traditions, this too is wrong. The miracle of monotheism is that Unity in Heaven creates diversity on earth, and God asks us (with obvious conditions) to respect that diversity.

So the Flood and the Tower of Babel, though polar opposites, are linked, and the entire parsha of Noach is a brilliant study in the human condition. There are individualistic cultures and there are collectivist ones, and both fail, the former because they lead to anarchy and violence, the latter because they lead to oppression and tyranny.

So Paul Johnson’s insight turns out to be both deep and true. After the two great failures of the Flood and Babel, Abraham was called on to create a new form of social order that would give equal honour to the individual and the collective, personal responsibility and the common good. That remains the special gift of Jews and Judaism to the world.

23 October 2011

The Terrorists captured and sequestered Gilad Shalit, "Hamas, Army of Islam and Popular Resistance Committees terrorists took Shalit into captivity, kept him hidden and refused to honor the Geneva Convention that requires captors and kidnappers to allow Red Cross visits and communication with families."

Wikipedia: "Shalit was abducted" ... Multiple human rights organizations stated that the terms and conditions of Shalit's confinement were contrary to international humanitarian law. The United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, which released a report in September 2009, also called for Shalit to be released.

TRUTH: Gilad was kidnapped and held against his will for 5 years.

LIE: The “Free Gaza” movement alleges that Gaza terrorists “captured” and did not “kidnap” Shalit

But now that Gilad is home,

TRUTH: Hamas vows to ABDUCT more Israelis. The operative word here is "more".

To "abduct" is to "kidnap" (to remove i.e., a person by force or cunning; kidnap).

Netanyahu also gave instructions to 'meaningfully augment'(what does this mean, Bibi?) enforcement along the southern border in order to reduce the number of infiltrators, until the completion of a security barrier along the border.

When will these headlines become the reality wherever Yehudim (Jews) are living on Eretz Yisrael?

No, this is not about Palestinians wanting to reclaim parts of Eretz Yisrael (with a spanish accent) ... it is about the

Hispanicization of America

"American students now pledge allegiance to Mexico. They sing its national anthem. And it is sanctioned by the state of Texas. Sound absurd? It is. Last month in a Spanish class at Achieve Early College High School in McAllen, Texas, students recited the Mexican pledge of allegiance and were instructed to memorize the Mexican anthem. Moreover, they had to wear red, white and green - the colors of the Mexican flag - as they fulfilled their class assignment. Public high schools no longer promote American patriotism, but they are doing a superb job of cultivating loyalty to Mexico.

"Moreover, this is part of the Hispanicization of America. Since 1990, nearly 20 million illegal aliens have crossed our porous southern border. If one adds legal immigration, the foreign-born population is nearly 40 million. America essentially has imported an entire subculture the size of a major European nation. This is the most dramatic cultural transformation in one generation in history. Our political class is engaged in a dangerous social experiment - one that threatens to destroy our country.

"[T]he Mexican government has been open about its expansionist aims. Its consulates in America have a mandate to provide Mexican textbooks in communities with large Hispanic populations. The Mexican consulate in Los Angeles has distributed hundreds of thousands of such textbooks to more than 1,000 schools in the Los Angeles area alone. Those textbooks teach that the Southwest, California and Texas belong to Mexico; that they were stolen in the 1848 Mexican-American War; and that Hispanic children owe allegiance to the Mexican flag and the Mexican state. In Mexico City and among radical Hispanic activists in America, the strategy is called “La Reconquista” - the reconquest of ancient lands."

It seems that there is a world wide movement to reclaim former land that some nations lost in war. the Palestinian aspirations are alive and well in Mexico according to the above article. If Mexico does gain control over parts of the United States, it will no longer be correct to call it the United States of America.

Maybe the United States of Mexico ... OR

"A Russian academic has long since predicted that the United States would fall apart. In Moscow, Igor Panarin's Forecasts Are All the Rage: America 'Disintegrates' ... Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar."

Well, Igor, maybe you're on to something. The forecast doesn't look too good for the US.

12 October 2011

[IT IS IMPORTANT WHAT IS HAPPENING IN AMERICA BECAUSE AMERICA IS THE LAST GREAT GOLUS THAT IS LIMPING INTO THE GEULA]

"occupy wall street" IS the 'coming insurrection' ...

the coming russian revolution

WHAT IS The Coming Insurrection, a French workthat hypothesizes the "imminent collapse of capitalist culture". Written by The Invisible Committee, an anonymous group of contributors (attributed to the Tarnac Nine by the French police), the book was first published in 2007 by French company La Fabrique. the full book

The book is divided into two parts. The first attempts a complete diagnosis of the totality of modern capitalist civilization, moving through what the Invisible Committee identify as the "seven circles" of alienation: "self, social relations, work, the economy, urbanity, the environment, and to close civilization". The latter part of the book begins to offer a prescription for revolutionary struggle based on the formation of communes, or affinity group-style units, in an underground network that will build its forces outside of mainstream politics, and attack in moments of crisis – political, social, environmental – to push towards anti-capitalist revolution. The insurrection envisioned by the Invisible Committee will revolve around "the local appropriation of power by the people, of the physical blocking of the economy and of the annihilation of police forces". wiki

11 October 2011

There won't be even 1 second of warning when this will occur. Therefore, we must prepare בכל נפשנו ומאדנו [which possibly means "with all our souls and money"].

All Jews outside of Israel should come to live in Israel. Even those who cannot do so should purchase an apartment so they'll have a place to which to escape when the time comes.

The closer the Palestinians declare their state, this is a sign that they will be pushed out. This is why Yishmael is turning over the world - because it still wants to stay in the land. Very soon, Hashem will remove this Ru'ah Tum'ah from the land, and all the impure chaff and straw which is delaying the Redemption will be as chaff before the wind and as the flame that setteth the mountains ablaze

Once upon a time there lived a vain Emperor (Abbas) whose only worry in life was to dress in elegant clothes. He changed clothes almost every hour and loved to show them off to his people.

Word of the Emperor's (Abbas) refined habits spread over his kingdom and beyond. Two scoundrels (Sarcozy and *Clinton) who had heard of the Emperor's vanity decided to take advantage of it. They introduced themselves at the gates of the palace with a scheme in mind.

"We are two very good tailors (the Scoundrals) and after many years of research we have invented an extraordinary method to weave a cloth so light and fine that it looks invisible. As a matter of fact it is invisible to anyone who is too stupid and incompetent to appreciate its quality."

The chief of the guards heard the scoundrel's strange story and sent for the court chamberlain. The chamberlain (Barak) notified the prime minister, who ran to the Emperor and disclosed the incredible news. The Emperor's curiosity got the better of him and he decided to see the two scoundrels.

"Besides being invisible, your Highness, this cloth will be woven in colors and patterns created especially for you." The emperor gave the two men a bag of gold coins in exchange for their promise to begin working on the fabric immediately.

"Just tell us what you need to get started and we'll give it to you." The two scoundrels asked for a loom, silk, gold thread and then pretended to begin working. The Emperor thought he had spent his money quite well: in addition to getting a new extraordinary suit, he would discover which of his subjects were ignorant and incompetent. A few days later, he called the old and wise prime minister, who was considered by everyone as a man with common sense.

"Go and see how the work is proceeding," the Emperor told him, "and come back to let me know."

The prime minister was welcomed by the two scoundrels.

"We're almost finished, but we need a lot more gold thread. Here, Excellency! Admire the colors, feel the softness!" The old man bent over the loom and tried to see the fabric that was not there. He felt cold sweat on his forehead.

"I can't see anything," he thought. "If I see nothing, that means I'm stupid! Or, worse, incompetent!" If the prime minister admitted that he didn't see anything, he would be discharged from his office.

"What a marvelous fabric, he said then. "I'll certainly tell the Emperor." The two scoundrels rubbed their hands gleefully. They had almost made it. More thread was requested to finish the work.

Finally, the Emperor received the announcement that the two tailors had come to take all the measurements needed to sew his new suit.

"Come in," the Emperor ordered. Even as they bowed, the two scoundrels pretended to be holding large roll of fabric (Peace Agreement)

"Here it is your Highness, the result of our labour," the scoundrels said. "We have worked night and day but, at last, the most beautiful fabric in the world is ready for you. Look at the colors and feel how fine it is." Of course the Emperor did not see any colors and could not feel any cloth between his fingers. He panicked and felt like fainting. But luckily the throne was right behind him and he sat down. But when he realized that no one could know that he did not see the fabric, he felt better. Nobody could find out he was stupid and incompetent. And the Emperor didn't know that everybody else around him thought and did the very same thing.

The farce (Oslo) continued as the two scoundrels had foreseen it. Once they had taken the measurements, the two began cutting the air with scissors while sewing with their needles an invisible cloth.

"Your Highness, you'll have to take off your clothes to try on your new ones." The two scoundrels draped the new clothes on him and then held up a mirror. The Emperor was embarrassed but since none of his bystanders were, he felt relieved.

"Yes, this is a beautiful suit and it looks very good on me," the Emperor said trying to look comfortable. "You've done a fine job."

"Your Majesty," the prime minister said, "we have a request for you. The people have found out about this extraordinary fabric and they are anxious to see you in your new suit." The Emperor was doubtful showing himself naked to the people, but then he abandoned his fears. After all, no one would know about it except the ignorant and the incompetent.

"All right," he said. "I will grant the people this privilege." He summoned his carriage and the ceremonial parade was formed. A group of dignitaries (the UN) walked at the very front of the procession and anxiously scrutinized the faces of the people in the street. All the people had gathered in the main square, pushing and shoving to get a better look. An applause welcomed the regal procession. Everyone wanted to know how stupid or incompetent his or her neighbor was but, as the Emperor passed, a strange murmur rose from the crowd.

Everyone said, loud enough for the others to hear: "Look at the Emperor's new clothes. They're beautiful!"

"What a marvellous train!"

"And the colors! The colors of that beautiful fabric! I have never seen anything like it in my life!" They all tried to conceal their disappointment at not being able to see the clothes, and since nobody was willing to admit his own stupidity and incompetence, they all behaved as the two scoundrels had predicted.

A child (honest and righteous people) however, who had no important job and could only see things as his eyes showed them to him, went up to the carriage.

"The Emperor is naked," he said.

"Fool!" his father (Livni) reprimanded, running after him. "Don't talk nonsense!" He grabbed his child and took him away. But the boy's remark, which had been heard by the bystanders, was repeated over and over again until everyone cried:

"The boy is right! The Emperor is naked! It's true!"

The Emperor realized that the people were right but could not admit to that. He though it better to continue the procession under the illusion that anyone who couldn't see his clothes was either stupid or incompetent. And he stood stiffly on his carriage, while behind him a page (Obama) held his imaginary mantle.

*you can substitute anyone else you think would be more appropriate, and feel free to improve on my few sarcastic edits.

Ari Abramowitz and Jeremy Gimpel ("Tuesday Night Live", a project that originated on Arutz Sheva ) are back. Ari and Jeremy present the following video which provides a captivating historical Biblical context through which to filter the events of our times.

"We wanted to offer a critical framework," they say. "A framework with which we can decide where the truth lies and where we should place our faith with regards to the modern State of Israel."

"As history progresses with dizzying speed and momentum, making sense of the seemingly random and disconnected events of our times is a near impossible feat," explains Gimpel. "In truth, however, the seismic shifts changing and shifting reality as we know it are the final culmination of a beautiful tapestry of Jewish and world history as laid out by the our Torah and Prophets."

Ari Abramowitz and Jeremy Gimpel, in conjunction with Arutz Sheva, produced this spellbinding video in their mission of bringing the truth and beauty of Israel with the world and making sure that all nations of the world remain “Israel Inspired”.

05 October 2011

"In meeting with Turkish FM, Syrian president discusses possibility of NATO strike, says 'I won't need more than six hours to transfer hundreds of rockets to Golan to fire at Tel Aviv'

"Syrian President Bashar Assad on Tuesday threatened to set fire to the Middle East, and especially to Israel, if NATO attacks Syria, the Iranian Fars news agency reported. In a meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Assad said: "If a crazy measure is taken against Damascus, I will need not more than six hours to transfer hundreds of rockets and missiles to the Golan Heights to fire them at Tel Aviv."

"Davutoglu reportedly conveyed a message of warning from the US to Assad. The Iranian report has not been verified by other sources.

"According to the Fars news agency, the Syrian president stressed that Damascus will also call on Hezbollah in Lebanon to launch a fierce rocket and missile attack on Israel, one that Israeli intelligence could never imagine. "All these events will happen in three hours, but in the second three hours, Iran will attack US warships in the Persian Gulf as American and European interests will be targeted simultaneously," Assad reportedly said.

Now why didn't we think of this?But we did! And we are in our "Original Home".Will someone please advise the Prof. To update his data!

Iranian president at 'Intifada Conference' says Palestinians should also "go home" and this would provide "simple solution" to solve conflict. The Iranian president made the comments during a two-day International Conference on Palestine, attended by diplomats from more than 20 countries

And the Prof. has an equal(ly brilliant) solution for the Palestinians!

"Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that in order to solve the Israel-Palestinian conflict, the "Palestinians should go home," and "those that were brought [to Israel]" should as well, AFP reported. Ahmadinejad said that this program would provide a "simple solution" to the "Zionist regime" should it wish "to solve the issue."

YES, the simple solution would be for all the Arabs to go back to the deserts of Arabia from whence they ventured out with sword and dagger in hand to plunder and murder.

The Posek HaDor was admitted to Shaare Zedek Medical Center for tests in recent weeks, and it appears he has not since recovered. While he was discharged, the Rav has been weak and having difficulty maintaining his daily routine. This was the case on Rosh Hashanah too.

As a result of his weakness over yomtov, the Rav has agreed to return to Shaare Zedek for another round of tests. It is unclear exactly when this will occur.

In the Sunday edition of the Israeli Yated, there is a notice in the name of Rav Shteinman Shlita calling upon the tzibur to daven for Rav Elyashiv’s well-being.

HaGaon HaRav Aaron Leib Shteinman is experiencing strong pains in a leg, apparently due to an infection, making ambulation most difficult.

During the days of Rosh Hashanah the Rosh Yeshiva walked from his home at 5 Chazon Ish Street in Bnei Brak to Yeshivas Gaon Yaakov on Nechemia Street, a walk that takes the Gadol HaDor 30 minutes.

The Rosh Yeshiva davens in Gaon Yaakov every year, the yeshiva headed by a son-in-law, Rabbi Ze’ev Berlin to take part in tefilos musaf and shofar blowing. The Rav’s grandson is the bal tokea.

Due to the infection and its accompanying pains and difficulty ambulating, the Rav remains home at this time. In past years, the Rosh Yeshiva delivers many shiurim during the Aseres Yimei Tshuva in Yeshivas Ponevezh and Slobodka, attracting thousands, but this year, he may cancel some or all of them due to the Rav’s physical condition.

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LIVING in Eretz Israel is the equivalent of all the Mitzvot of the Torah (Sifri, Parashat Re'eh, TOSEFTA, AVODA ZARA 5:2)

Fortunate is he who merits in his life to FIX HIS RESIDENCE in Eretz HaKodesh (Zohar Hakadosh Iii 72b) and remove from your heart this false belief that a man has more blessings outside the land (Alshich Hakadosh, Ki Tavo 28:6)